, 1887-08-14

her there, and then she always used to
pluck a Leaf of 1t (the FERN to place in her
r bosom, for its sweet odor.'' Living again
the the old days over, she said to herself:
My name shall be Fanny Fern'-little
dreaming anybody would know or care
anything about it" And again: MANY,
many long days after this Cher childhood
experiences) | visited my birthplace,
Portland. 4 \ l wandered up and
down the streets of that lovely, leafy city,
and tried to find the church where good
Doctor PaYson used to preach. Then,
too, l wanted to see the house where |
was born-the house where he laid hands
of blessing on my baby forehead when it
was purple with what they thought was
death agony But where it was that
the little Pickering life began, I could
not find out"
10 me there was something indescrib-
ably pitiful IN this impressive conscious
ness of desertion of honored worth; and
with this little clue, after four weeks of
delving among musty titles and records,
after meeting and questioning scores OF
old, old folk garrulous and fluent upon all
that which had come, save the thing
sought, into the century with them; | was
brought to a snug cottage at 70 Franklin
lin the old days Essex street; and this, |
finally verified, stood on the spot where
once was the home of the Willis family.
In that home, the poet and his sister
were born.
There is another delight awaiting the
visitor here. That, resistlessly forces
through the material surrounding, scene,
association and all, and takes form in a
conscious recognition Of the power in this
noble New England coast and all the
magic of the sea-, as Longtellow confessed
it, as a distinct, direct and measureless
source of inspiration in much of our
noblest literature. This Identification of
mature expression with
AN AUTHORS EARLY IMPRESSION,
which the ~biographers often miss in an
alert popularity of Boswellian incident, is
not a mere matter of fancyl With the Alb
bots, who were of these parts, it is seldom
wholly caught-worse luck for a quality
that might have thrilled through his
graceful symphonies up to a key high as
genius-the distinct and powerful inspir-
alton OF the locality, when he was wedged
into belittling metropolitan life. All
through Fanny Ferns sweet and tender
prose the spirit of the witching spot
plants and murmurs, occasionally rising
to noble voicings. Hawthorne himself
drew his first wizard coastwise fancies
from the docks and slips, and tides and
tars of this very seaport town, when he
stole into it at precious times from the
little home over there a few miles behind
the hills. But with Longfellow, who
drank in its spell until manhood, it be-
came
A LOVING BIRTHMARK.
upon the face of his glowing verse from
the Sea Diver" published in the Uni
ted States Literary Gazette, August Is,
1925, when the poet was but 10, to Mad
River, published in the atlantic for May,
l8S2-an uninterrupted period of literary
labor of nearly sixty years. To one who
will come here and dream in the same sea
air that waited these priceless argosies of
imagery into the songtul soul of the
master poet, the study wonderfully holds
and fascinates. See how it can be traced,
this presence of the very sea which in his
boyhood beat and surged and laughed and
sang among the thrice IN hundred
harbor, shutting in, but expanding and
giving majestic wings to the poets spirit
in the rare old seaport town" 1t thrills
in The Sea Diver" it stalks through
THE Skeleton in Armor;" it shudders in
The Wreck of the Hesperus;" its
wrath speaks from THE Witness" it is
drifting, drifting, drifting in Sea
Weed" its beats like the r~esounding
hammer of Thor in The Building of the
Ship"
IT REVEALS DISSATISFIED LONGINGs
in The Secret of the Sea-" it paints Old
Portland Head itself in The Light
house. it prompts to sweet r~everies in that
home psalm, The Fire of Driftwood;"
its sOnorous voice is heard in '"Tegner's
Drapa;' you can feel its very pulse in
My Lost Youth that cry out of the
poet heart as in later years he makes his
old home immortal with his love; it PAGES
to and fro with a familiar tread in The
Ropewalk;" its icy breath is felt in THE
Discoverer of the North Cape" it steals
up through the mists of 'Daybreak;" it
taps upon the window panes where Tales
Of Wayslde Inn" are told; it thunders
III The Cumberland" it sobs in pal
ingenesis;" it is with the curfew in The
Bells of Lynn" its Joyous song is in THE
Brook and the Wave it prompts the
tenderests couplet in THE Hanging of
the Crane"
1t dances through "Amalf;" in the
sonnet Milton, y it rises steadier than all
else; Its rythmical p~ulsings and beat are
} III every line OF IN the SOunu OF the
Sea, "A Summer Day by the Sea" and
"The Tides its low undertone is a soft
accompaniment to "Keramos;'' it reels
and crashes in "A Ballad OF the French
Fleet" it is a boundless ocean of song in
Ultima Thule" slowly and stately and
still its presence greets us in "Elegiac:'
it chants a solemn dirge through The
Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" it comes
with 1.-THE breath of inspiration" in Be
calmed;" it tells the mariner when
to sail' in May" it comes with
the heavy breast OF the deep
in The City by the Sea-" and in Pos
sibilities," where the master singer wrote
his last true song out of the uttermost
depths of his inner being, its voice is as
that of one of good faith who is already
setting sail upon that sea of tender mys-
terry which to earthly vision forever hides
and enshrouds the Utmost Isle.
All this and much more can be seen
/, and perhaps for the first time fully taken
into the heart, in lovely, leafy" old
H.